School of Psychology

Seminar Series Autumn 2022

Date: Oct 26th, 2022

Time: 1:00 to 2:00 pm

Location: Psych A1, University Park Campus

The impact of pathogen prevalence on pre-political beliefs, political ideology and partisan preference

Brian O'Shea , University of Nottingham

Tybur et al., (2016) suggested that the relationship between pathogens and politics reflects intragroup rather than intergroup motivations. This contrast was based on their report from a survey of 11,501 participants across 30 countries that cross-national parasite stress related to traditional group norm adherence (intragroup), but was unrelated to the endorsement of intergroup hierarchy, as measured by social dominance orientation (SDO). This null effect was particularly surprising given the array of prior evidence showing that environments with more infectious diseases and experimental reminders of diseases increase intergroup conflict/prejudice. However, the authors did not control for group status, as indexed for instance by race/ethnicity, although decades of prior research demonstrate that both the levels and effects of SDO are fundamentally moderated by group status (e.g., Sidanius et al., 2001, Kunst et al., 2017). Ignoring these behavioral asymmetries thus may mask true effects. Here we show that parasite stress is related to SDO across 30 countries (N > 600,000), but only after controlling for dominant versus subordinate group status. We replicate this effect across the 50 US states (N > 500,000). These distinct race divergences extend to US political preferences such that Whites are explicitly and implicitly more likely to prefer Republicans in high infectious disease states, while non-Whites instead prefer Democrats. All these effects remained even after controlling for individual and state-level controls. Racial groups express more support in threatening environments for beliefs and political groups that are perceived as likely to protect or help their group interests.

Contact: brian.oshea@nottingham.ac.uk

Refreshments will be available at the Social Space after the seminar.